By Peter Blais
The rising cost of bunker maintenance is forcing many owners to ignore other areas of their course and operation

Like many course operators, Mark Wildeman had long speculated that golfers’ demands for perfect lies was driving his bunker maintenance costs to exorbitant levels. Yet rather than guess how much constant grooming was impacting his budget, the director of grounds maintenance at Treetops Resort in Gaylord, Michigan, decided to conduct a time-and-motion study on the facility’s nine-hole, par-3 Threetops layout,. The results were rather astonishing. Wildeman’s study revealed that 50 percent of his hourly labor budget at Threetops was consumed by maintaining the layout’s 37 hazards, which amount to 61,000 square feet of bunkered area. For perspective, consider that’s more than double the amount Wildeman spends on his greens. Preliminary results on one of Treetops regulation-length courses, the Rick Smith Signature layout, indicate the 137 recently renovated hazards (totaling 196,000 square feet) account for approximately 40 percent of his labor line. By contrast, the cost to maintain greens on the same course requires 25 percent of his budget.

The reason for the excessive costs can be linked to one variable: time. Wildeman’s crew is forced to hand-rake all the bunkers on Threetops because they’re too small for a mechanized bunker rake, and they have to fly-mow bunker banks due to the steep slopes. They also pull weeds and edge by hand, and install liners.

“We’re constantly repairing liners and checking sand depths to keep them consistent,” Wildeman says. “We spend a lot of time putting in sand, moving it around and throwing it up on the edges.” Factor in the costs to maintain Treetops’ three other courses—Masterpiece, Premier and Tradition—and the maintenance budget for bunkers alone eclipses most operators’ entire maintenance expenditures each year.

Fortunately for Wildeman, the results of his study weren’t completely a shock. A veteran of such notable facilities as Congressional Country Club outside Washington, Bob O’Link in Chicago and Point O’ Woods in nearby Benton Harbor, Wildeman had anticipated the heavy costs in his budget requests. Still, the shear volume of dollars and hours devoted to maintaining an area where most golfers visit less than five times per round seems disproportionate—at least it does to Jim Moore, director of the United States Golf Association (USGA) Green Section Construction Education Program.

“One trend that I experience almost daily is golfers’ obsession with bunkers—specifically their desire for ‘consistency,’” Moore says. “This can be translated to, ‘Do whatever you can to make it easy for me to get out of this trap!’

“The bottom line is that bunkers are costing golfers a fortune, whether they realize it or not,” he adds. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

THE PRICE OF PERFECTION

Bob Randquist served as superintendent at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for nearly two decades before taking over at Boca Rio Golf Club in Boca Raton, Florida, eight years ago. He’s witnessed, first-hand, how bunker maintenance has evolved over the past 25 years, a fact supported by surveys completed by participants of seminars he’s conducted periodically at the Golf Industry Show (GIS). More than 50 percent of those polled during his sessions note that superintendents who once raked bunkers two to three times per week are now doing so six to seven times weekly.

“That’s the main reason bunker maintenance costs have gone up so much,” Randquist  explains. “The notion that bunkers are a hazard is not as popular as it once was. We’re maintaining them in a fashion that makes them less than a hazard. The sand tends to be kept firm with smooth surfaces so players can easily hit out of them.”

In terms of expense, Randquist estimates most 18-hole courses spend between $50,000 and $125,000 to maintain bunkers. Costs can rise to $250,000 to $300,000 annually in extreme cases, where bunkers are raked daily by hand, sand depths are checked constantly, wetting agents are applied to control moisture, and other methods such as vibratory tamps and brooms are used to firm surfaces. The price tag to keep bunkers in “championship” condition 365 days per year would total between $300,000 and $350,000.

“Almost without fail, when people start tracking labor hours, their raw labor budgets are between 15 and 25 percent for maintaining bunkers,” Randquist says. “Greens are the only category that require more labor hours, generally running between 26 and 28 percent of labor costs. Bunkers have always been the second-highest category for labor. It’s crazy.”

With so much money being invested in the maintenance of bunkers, other areas of the course sometimes suffer. Architect Craig Schreiner, president of Schreiner Golf and co-owner of Prairie Highlands Golf Club in Olathe, Kansas, notes that his staff “does everything we can to minimize daily maintenance there and reallocate those labor hours to tees, greens and fairways,” but admits that practice “often requires a larger capital investment than some courses currently have in their bunkers.”
To save money down the road, Schreiner contends operators initially have to invest some. For example, the square-footage construction costs for a bunker generally range from $2.50 to $3—a price that can fluctuate dramatically depending upon the type of sand selected, which ranges from $25 to $75 per ton.

“A properly designed, 1,000-square-foot bunker may cost $4,500 to $5,000,” Schreiner says. “But in the long run, it will save a lot of maintenance money.”

Logic would hold that architects fuel the rising costs of bunker maintenance, but that’s not always the case. True, some designers configure high-maintenance bunkers, but most architects are cognizant of the delicate balance between aesthetics and maintainability. 

“I don’t see architects as a major factor in high maintenance costs—the amount of maintenance is usually out of their hands after the course opens,” Randquist notes. “In fact, they’ve actually gotten better at being sensitive to diverting water flows around bunkers so they don’t wash out as badly.”
Schreiner understands the importance of minimizing bunker maintenance costs and keeping golf affordable. He, like many “minimalist” designers, shapes bunker bottoms to facilitate better drainage, using bunker barriers and adequate drainage underneath. Schreiner also limits the number of bunkers he incorporates into his designs, preferring to place a few strategically around the course rather than scattered about in large numbers.

“You need a maximum of a half-dozen bunkers per hole, and they do not have to be huge,” he says. “On some holes (par-4s), only two are necessary—one at the green and one at the landing area. On many holes, however, you see 12 or more.”

More bunkers mean more maintenance per hazard, not to mention slower rounds. In terms of area, Schreiner advocates that the total square footage of bunkers be kept under 75,000 to reduce maintenance costs and improve pace. “If you have less, you can generally be a little more penal and not have to rake them out as often,” he adds.

Kevin Atkinson of Phelps/Atkinson Golf Design agrees bunkers should penalize rather than reward golfers. On the other hand, bunkers often present an opportunity for an architect to make an aesthetic statement, especially if a site lacks natural beauty.

“The bunker work we did at Oak Hills Country Club (in Omaha, Nebraska) was extremely artistic in a park-style setting,” Atkinson says. “The new hazards had very clean, neat lines. They weren’t natural looking, but very aesthetic.”

Atkinson is quick to admit, however, that maintenance on Oak Hills’ bunkers proves “more extreme” than that required on the company’s typical bunker designs. But when weighed against the prospect of generating visual beauty, the decision was made to create hazards that require significant hand-raking to produce a nice, clean look.

By contrast, a more rugged bunker design that requires less-intensive maintenance works well in areas where the land possesses more natural beauty. “Native-looking bunkers with native grasses along the edge can make bunkers more of a hazard,” says Atkinson, noting that was the effect he and the owners were seeking at Devils Tower Golf Club in Wyoming. “That lends itself to letting the bunker sand be a little more unkempt. But when you have nice, clean edges, people want nice, powdery sand.”

REDUCING THE COST

The demand for perfect conditions and the realities of budget constraints force operators and superintendents alike to strike a balance between beauty and efficiency. According to Randquist, the easiest way to counter exorbitant bunker maintenance costs is to “go back to the notion that bunkers are really hazards.” In other words, reduce the frequency of raking and worry less about the perfect uniformity of the sand surface.

“Some courses spend less than $10,000 to $25,000 a year on bunker maintenance,” he adds. “Players at those facilities accept the notion that bunkers are supposed to be hazards.”

While most people agree that bunkers should be devoid of deep footprints, raking footprints from the day before—instead of raking the entire bunker every day—is a good alternative for most courses, according to Bob Brame, director of the USGA Green Section North Central Region. “Raking footprints daily and entire bunkers just once or twice per week, instead of daily, can reduce maintenance costs without affecting playability,” he says.

Meanwhile, in Randquist’s survey, golfers indicated that the No. 1 thing they want in bunkers is consistency from hazard to hazard. Despite those findings, not everyone believes consistency should be the goal.

“The notion that bunkers should be consistent discounts a major factor of golf,” Randquist says. “You’re saying you will never have to deal with a bad bounce, an unfortunate lie or bad situation. That was not the original intent of golf. Part of the beauty and challenge of the game is having to deal with the more difficult things that come your way.”

Although the idea that bunkers are truly hazards—and, as such, should elicit a penalty—is commonly accepted in European countries, it isn’t without precedent in the United States. In fact, during this year’s Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, course architect and tournament host Jack Nicklaus mixed things up on the world’s top players. Using gap-toothed rakes that left furrows rather than perfectly smooth sand conditions in bunkers, Nicklaus challenged his fellow players with less-than-ideal conditions.

“I watched the tournament on television and thought to myself, ‘That’s the way, Jack,” Schreiner says. “If anyone can pull this off, you can.’”

Even still, convincing dues-paying golfers that every time they hit into a bunker should elicit a penalty would require a change in mindset. The burden would fall upon the golf industry—and operators in particular—to sell the notion to players, much like they were forced to do in the 1990s with the advent of non-metal spikes for shoes. If management decides to reduce bunker maintenance, owners also need to educate their customers, especially if the decision is made to reduce maintenance.

“One of the keys is to make owners, members and customers aware of the cost of maintaining bunkers at a certain level since they are the ones who have to make the decision about how much to spend,” says Randquist, who uses an eight-page questionnaire with seminar attendees to detail the costs of maintaining bunkers at various levels. He encourages superintendents to utilize the survey during discussions with owners, members and golfers at their home courses. “When we make our clientele aware of what it costs, many times they are prone to accept a more hazardous condition for the bunkers in order to not spend so much money,” he adds.

Despite the potential backlash, Randquist believes reduced bunker maintenance can be framed as a positive—if the operator does it appropriately. An owner could explain that the staff chooses to maintain bunkers in a certain condition because it believes bunkers should present genuine hazards to play and make the course more challenging.

“You need to be open with people about why you do things,” he says. “Most golfers would be willing to accept that, especially if their green fees were a little less as a result.”

Peter Blais is a Maine-based freelance writer.

Golf Business Magazine 2009